"I think we should just keep going in the direction Matt told us. At least then we know we’ll get out of the forest.”

Avi stared at Elchanan, his eyes wide with shock. “What do you mean, they left the trail? Why would they do that? Weren’t they going to follow it to look for us?”

Elchanan shrugged. “I don’t know why they did anything. I just know what I saw.”

“They came from that direction,” Avi said, thinking hard. “Maybe they assume that we’re not on the path because that Stefan guy said he hadn’t seen us? Could that be why they left the trail?”

Elchanan shrugged again. He didn’t have the head for all these complicated calculations. “The fact is, they could be anywhere by now. I think we should just keep going in the direction Matt told us. At least then we know we’ll get out of the forest.”

Avi wasn’t listening. “I really want to try to find the search party,” he said. “They can’t have gone too far yet — maybe if we run really fast...”

Elchanan wondered if it was because Avi had been so tantalizingly close to his father that he was stubbornly determined to go after the search party. “They’ve had a 15-minute head start and we have no idea which direction they went,” he said, trying to sound reasonable. “I don’t think we’ll be able to find them, and we’ll probably just lose this trail as well, and then we’ll really be in trouble....”

“But you’re good at finding people’s tracks in the forest. Didn’t you find our way back to the main trail this morning?”

Avi looked so hopeful, Elchanan almost felt bad to let him down. “I can’t find them, Avi. I really can’t. I think it would be stupid to try. If we leave this path, we’re lost. And with those guys lurking in the forest... who knows when the search party will come back to this area?”

“Who says they won’t be on the path ahead of us?” Avi countered.

“They won’t,” Elchanan said confidently. “Remember, Matt is the one who showed us the escape route, and he’s their navigator. He’ll make sure they don’t meet up with us. But we have to move fast, because soon he’ll assume we’ve left the forest... and he won’t make sure to keep them out of our way.”

Avi was still hesitating, fighting an internal battle. “So you think...?”

“I really think we need to forget about going after them and just get out of the forest,” Elchanan said.

Avi took a deep breath. “Okay.”

Elchanan blinked, taken aback. That was it?

“You — you don’t mind...?” he stammered.

“Listen, you’ve been a pretty good navigator till now,” Avi said wryly. He hesitated, then continued, “Not to mention the tree thing. You — you saved our lives, that’s for sure. I would never have been able to get up a tree alone — if I would ever have thought of the idea in the first place.”

Elchanan had never imagined he’d see the day when Avi Shine would give him a genuine compliment — and he’d feel embarrassed by it.

“It’s okay,” he mumbled. “Anyway, you’re the one who figured out a lot of things... where we are, what the guys are up to....”

Avi looked away. “Thanks, but you know, brains only take you so far. And in a forest... not so far at all.”

Elchanan felt uncomfortable, but he knew that for Avi to admit these things must have been even more awkward. “I guess we make a good pair after all,” he said lightly as they set off down the trail.